How to Add Rain or Snow to a Photo

There may be times when you want to have a little fun with a photo and add an element that didn’t really exist in the scene. This isn’t going to be the case with the majority of your photos, but sometimes it can allow you to add an element that will enhance the photo in some way. You could add anything from light leaks, to sparkles, to rainbows, to bubbles, to snow and rain.

In this post we’ll look at how you can easily add rain or snow to a photo using a simple overlay, and we’ve also got a free rain overlay that you can download and use with your own photos. It’s possible to create effects like rain and snow from scratch in Photoshop, but the easier, and much quicker, way is to use a pre-made photo overlay. Here are PhotographyPla.net we have overlays for adding rain and snow. If you want a free overlay that you can use to add rain to your photos, download it here (this download is the same overlay that will be shown with the sample image below).

Here is a before version of the photo that I’ll be using for this sample.

To get started, simply open your photo and the overlay in Photoshop. Now, the overlays are sized at 5400 x 3600 pixels, so they are easily large enough to work with most photos with no need to enlarge the overlay. The first thing you’ll want to do is re-size the overlay to match the size of your photo. Make sure that the height and width of the overlay are as larger or larger than the height and width of your photo. If your photo is larger than 5400 x 3600 pixels I recommend that you reduce the size of your photo, unless you will be printing it at a very large size.

Next, in the rain overlay copy the layer by going to Edit > Copy. Then move over to your photo and paste the overlay layer on top of your photo by going to Edit > Paste. After pasting your overlay it will look something like this:

How to Add Rain or Snow to a Photo